DESCRIPTION (Applicant's Abstract): The purpose of the Policy and Ethics Core will assure that HIV prevention research at CAPS meets the highest ethical standards, addresses pressing policy questions, and has a high impact on the policy-making process. The CAPS Ethics Core has a long history of providing consultation and technical assistance to prevention scientists on the ethical and legal dilemmas that inevitably arise in HIV prevention research. Over the last 2 years, the Policy Core has developed a service orientation to assist CAPS scientists to assess the policy implications of their work and increase the policy impact of their findings. Both cores have carried out research on policy and ethical issues pertinent to HIV prevention. The move to the P30 mechanism provides an opportunity to merge these two cores, providing formal recognition of the way in which they have actually been operating over the last 2 years - as a single unit addressing different aspects of the same crucial issues. This combined core will be more administratively efficient than separate cores and will yield synergy to our analyses of issues. The specific aims of the Policy and Ethics Core during this 5-year grant period are to: 1. Assure that CAPS research meets the highest ethical standards by: a) Monitoring emerging issues and new developments regarding research ethics and regulations; b) Providing individual consultation and technical assistance on ethical and legal issues arising in research projects; and c) Conducting seminars on research ethics. 2. Assure that CAPS research is policy-relevant by: a) Monitoring emerging policy issues; b) Highlighting emerging policy for CAPS scientists through Policy Town Hall meetings and Policy Roundtables; and c) Providing individual consultation and technical assistance to CAPS scientists on how their research projects might provide an evidence base for policy decisions. 3. Increase the policy impact of CAPS prevention research by: a) Providing individual consultation to CAPS scientists on how to effectively communicate their findings to key policymakers; b) Facilitating interactions between policymakers and prevention scientists; and c) Providing consultation to federal, state, and local policymakers on HIV prevention issues. 4. Stimulate and conduct high-impact research on policy and ethics issues in HIV prevention by: a) Identifying priority topics for policy and ethics research projects; b) Convening multidisciplinary working groups and Policy Forums; c) Developing proposals to obtain funding to carry out research projects on policy and ethics issues; d) Conducting policy, ethics, and legal research; and e) Linking CAPS researchers with ethics and policy scientists at other institutions.